A few weeks ago my wife commented that my sermon that week
was unusual because of the volume of quotations. She said to me, “You don’t
usually have so many words from so many other people.” What I didn’t tell her
was there was a long one that I left out!
It’s a quotation that I’ve cited before. In fact, it’s one I
quoted at length about fifteen years ago with the disclaimer that the rule of
thumb in preaching is never use a long quotation. But because these words are a
benchmark in understanding the Gospel, I’ll give it to you verbatim. It’s from
the great British expositor of the last century, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’
commentary on Romans 6:1 where Paul says, “What should we say then? Should we
continue in sin that grace may abound?” Lloyd-Jones writes:
There is a sense in which the
doctrine of justification by faith only is a very dangerous doctrine;
dangerous, I mean, in the sense that it can be misunderstood. It exposes a man
to this particular charge. People listening to it may say, “Ah, there is a man
who does not encourage us to live a good life, he seems to say that there is no
value in our works, he says that ‘all our righteousness are as filthy rags’….
Therefore what he is saying is that it does not matter what you do, sin as much
as you like.” …There is thus clearly a sense in which the message of
“justification by faith only” can be dangerous, and likewise with the message
that salvation is entirely of grace….I say therefore that if our preaching does
not expose us to that charge and to that misunderstanding, it is because we are
not really preaching the gospel. Nobody has ever brought this charge against
the Church of Rome, but it was brought frequently against Martin Luther; indeed
that was precisely what the Church of Rome said about the preaching of Martin
Luther. They said, “This man who was a priest has changed the doctrine in order
to justify his own marriage and his own lust” …and so on. “This man”, they
said, “is an antinomian; and that is heresy.” That is the very charge they
brought against him. It was also brought against George Whitefield two hundred
years ago. It is the charge that formal dead Christianity – if there is such a
thing – has always brought against this startling, staggering message, that God
“justifies the ungodly”, and that we are saved, not by anything we do, but in
spite of it, entirely and only by the grace of God through our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ.
That is my comment; and it is a
very important comment for preachers. I would say to all preachers: If your
preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had
better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really
are preaching the salvation that is offered in the New Testament to the ungodly,
to the sinner, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, to those who are
enemies of God. There is this kind of dangerous element about the true
presentation of the doctrine of salvation.
It’s this presentation of the Gospel Paul sets forth so
powerfully in Galatians 2. With chapter 2 as his backdrop, Paul now turns to
chapter 3 where he introduces the power available to every believer.
Paul’s
startling message is that He is the One who not only applies the work of Christ
to our lives at the beginning of our walk with Christ (justification), but He
continues to apply the work of Christ to us in our progress in the faith
(sanctification). Simply put, the way a believer begins to walk in faith is
exactly the way he/she must continue to walk.
In preparation for this week’s message, “Seeing with Power”
from Galatians 3:1-5, you may wish to consider the following:
- Read John 16:4(b)-15. What does this tell us about the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives?
- How is Jesus a perfect illustration of the modern hero and the post modern hero??
- What is Paul saying to the Galatians when he addresses them as foolish?
- How have they been “bewitched”?
- What is the relevance of receiving the Holy Spirit (v.2)?
- What is the benefit of having received the Holy Spirit by hearing with faith rather than works of the law?
- What does Paul mean when he says that they have seen Jesus publicly portrayed as crucified?
- What is the principle way in which the Holy Spirit perfects the believer?
- How does II Corinthians 3:5-6 fit with our text?
- How is Jesus the only hero we need?
